Apple Is Forcing Devs To Make All Apple TV Games Compatible With Siri Remote

When Apple unveiled its next-gen Apple TV last week, it surprised a lot of people by touting that it'd be great for gaming. It's largely interesting because gaming has never been a focal point for Apple before in this particular arena, but it didn't come as much of a surprise given that its competitors are all promising great gaming on their respective TV solutions.

Whether Apple's foray into TV gaming will be a hit is yet to be seen, but we do already know of a rather notable caveat: all games designed for the platform will require support for the Apple TV's remote. Straight from the developer FAQ: "Your game must support the Apple TV remote. Your game may not require the use of a controller." Ouch.

Some might consider it to be a great thing that Apple wants to guarantee that its remote can be used for all games, because as consumers, there'd never be a second guess about it. But the fact of the matter is, not all games are going to be ideal with a given type of game; while you could get by, that doesn't mean that it's ideal.

What this ultimately means is that developers will need to go out of their way to support a remote which might not even be used by anyone, simply because it doesn't make sense to use that kind of input. Imagine playing a platformer with a remote, for example - that's clunky. If there's any upside at all, it's that the Apple TV remote looks like it could be suitable for many casual games, but even so, this could be considered yet another overstepping on Apple's part.